Other Lives: Children's Museum executive believes in the harmony of teamwork

Thursday

May 11, 2017 at 3:15 AM

By Michael Lohmeier

If you’ve always believed that the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire, located in Dover, was little more than a collection of crayon drawings, I have news for you. Their reach is far deeper and thoughtful.

Vice President of Development and Community Engagement Paula Rais said, “Our mission statement is, ‘engaging families and hands-on discovery.’ It’s broad enough to cover everything we do, but it doesn’t say everything we do.” Part of her goal is to also find ways to connect “with some overlooked or under-served audience.”

One example is children on the autism spectrum. She continued, “They have a hard time being someplace where there’s a lot of noise or what seems like chaos. We’ve often heard how difficult it is (for them) to visit the museum.” In 2010, she and her staff put together a program that allows those children and their families to visit the museum when it’s usually closed to the public. “It took a lot of different people with different expertise and perspective on this concern to make it work for everybody.”

The free program is named Exploring Our Way and takes place the first Sunday of each month during the school year from 10 a.m. to noon. After seven years, “(The program is) still going strong and has been a model for programs across the country.”

She said that a few years ago, she and her team wanted to find a way “to address the different members of our community that aren’t typically seen coming through our doors. People that live here, but aren’t well integrated.” The solution, as put forth by volunteer Tess Felts, was to build relationships and trust through art. “She researched and designed how this program might work.”

Starting this month, the museum is offering four weeks of free expressive art classes titled Inclusive Art Program: We All Belong: Art and Friendship Go Hand in Hand. As described on the museum website, it is specifically designed for “adults who are learning English as a second language, refugees or immigrants and their children, or Museum Member adults and children.”

The audience is invited to take part in “a warm, inclusive community, to engage in meaningful, out-of-school arts learning experiences. Play, create, express yourself, share your ideas and form new friendships.” Rais added that the art that is created will be part of what the museum will showcase next year. “We hope it will build and grow and we’ll make some connections, and we hope they will make some connections. That’s the part I find exciting and fulfilling.”

Yet another audience the museum has reached out to is people who have dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. Rais described the program named, Alzheimer’s Cafe, as, “a social program,” for this group, their caregivers and families. “It gives (these) people a chance to be out together and it’s not a medical appointment, it’s not related to their condition and they can do something together. A lot of times you start losing things; you’re not going out to dinner, you’re not socializing with your friends because of the progression of the disease and all the other demands of care.” The museum sets up linen-topped tables with chairs and serves coffee and snacks.

“It’s like a little cocktail party without the cocktails. We spend an hour-and-a-half together talking and visiting. Sometimes we have music. We make sure everybody’s engaged and having a good time.” It happens once a month and is free.

If there is a common thread through these activities, it is that they all came about through a brainstorming group effort, rather than from a dictum handed down from above. So it comes as no surprise to learn that when she’s not helping to develop a new museum project, she sings in a choir.

“I used to sing with my sisters and my best friend who lived next door when we were kids. I always loved singing in harmony,” she added.

Early on, she sang with an a cappella quartet she started with friends named, The Moonbeams. “For 13 years, we were introducing people to the idea that you didn’t need instruments (to make music).” This was “before Boys To Men and the whole a cappella renaissance.”

In addition to performing at festivals and “little parties,” they sang an a cappella version of the national anthem before a couple of Celtics games at the Boston Garden. She described that experience as “probably the most fun job I’ve ever had — it didn’t feel like a job.”

The Moonbeams eventually went their separate ways, and for more than ten years, she has sung masterworks and choral music with Amare Cantare (“To Love To Sing”). This chamber ensemble is made up of about 24 voices and requires an audition to become a member when a spot opens. Appropriately, the Amare Cantare website mentions that, the group’s director, Catherine Beller-McKenna, “believes strongly in the power of music to build community.”

“I do think there is some connection with the work I do at the museum, working with people to create something you couldn’t have done as a solo,” Rais said. “I’m not interested in a solo. I don’t have a solo voice.”

So, she doesn’t want to front the band? “I want to be one of the Pips. I want to be in the background. Part of a team.” Like her day job, the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

For more information about the Childrens Museum, please visit: www.childrens-museum.org

For more information about Amare Cantare, please visit: www.amarecantare.org

Michael Lohmeier lives in Portsmouth writes a bi-weekly feature on the second lives many people lead outside of their main professions. Know someone who would make for an interesting profile? Drop a line to edge@seacoastonline.com and share a bit about their story and their contact information. See more Other Lives profiles online.